


Drinks

by adventuressclub



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-07-27 15:21:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7623904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adventuressclub/pseuds/adventuressclub
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place shortly after 3x03. What exactly is Jack thinking when he frequently comes over for drinks, and does he ever run into her "parade" of men?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It only happened once. He’ll give her that. A brief knock at the door and her face tilted up from the game to reveal . . .could it have possibly been embarrassment? Was the woman in front of him capable of such an emotion? She knocked the table with her knees as she sprang up, his hands steadying their glasses while she hurried toward the door and waved Mr. Butler aside. She closed it swiftly behind her, her bare feet perched on the cold front step as he caught her muffled voice “rescheduling” the deliverer of the knock. 

He kept his gaze steady on the chessboard until she sat back down and swallowed the rest her whiskey. Her eyes told him she was waiting for him to make a joke, or enquire about the visitor so she could offer one. But he had officially retired from saying too much. 

On most nights, they settled into the acceptable subjects. The war. Politics. Literature. Hugh and Dot and the lessons that only life would teach them. The occasional gruesome crime scene. He imagined it felt like the ease of a fifty-year marriage, complete with the same, sexless routine. When he yawned, she would tease him out the door. The only time she ever yawned, he ran straight into a young footballer bounding up the front steps, ready to finish whatever game he’d unknowingly been tagged out of.

So twice. It had happened twice. 

Once she had fallen asleep in her chair and he just sat there finishing his drink. An awkward cough didn’t rouse her. He had taken their glasses to the kitchen, grabbed his coat and hat, looked back once, turned off the lights, looked back twice, and then he simply left. He thought she would tease him the next day, but she never mentioned it. 

What might another man have done? She probably wouldn’t have been bored to unconsciousness in the first place. They weren’t all pretty faces with blank minds. Certainly a revolutionary or a dashing professor could tell a story or two that he couldn’t. But somehow, she never made him feel like an extra card in her back pocket. He knew that she hated cards. 

Everything used to feel like a joke. Even an unexpected kiss was a thing that could be blown aside like air. Shameless remarks floated away like smoke before they had a chance to settle into one’s skin. But it didn’t feel like that anymore. The details of evenings spent apart were danced around. The artifacts of faceless male visitors that once had felt like an Easter Egg hunt gone wrong had now disappeared from her house, or perhaps they were carefully stowed away. Everything felt heavy, weighted, calculated. As if the only digestible outcome for the two of them was a stalemate. Because winning. . .well winning meant that someone would inevitably lose. 

“Jack. Sometime today, please.” 

“I’m sorry?”

Maybe he was imagining it, but there was a new face in her expressive repertoire, one that made him feel like she was trying so very hard to figure him out. Like there wasn’t enough damning evidence. As if he had never said what he had said and as if he hadn’t had the very light snuffed out of him when he thought she had gone and died.

“Jack. . .It’s your move.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Your mind is somewhere else tonight,” she says as she tips over his rook and twirls the prize around her fingers. 

“No, it’s most definitely here.” As if it had been anywhere else for the past year. He points to her empty glass and she shakes her head. 

“I’m not letting you sabotage me. I’ll need a clear head if I have any hope of winning.” 

He watches her determined stare at the board, wondering whether her words have a hidden meaning. When it’s clear that they don’t, he scoops up their glasses and takes them to the kitchen, anything to distract him from this game. He rinses her lipstick off of hers, and he flicks some cold water on his face. _Calm down, Robinson_. _Look at the evidence._

It’s a Saturday night. The weather is beautiful. Given all the evidence, under any normal circumstances, Phryne Fisher should be anywhere but home. But here she is, and so is he, and it’s damn near impossible for his head not to add two and two together. But his hopeful mathematics, are once again interrupted by normal circumstances, which take the form of a dull, determined knock at the door. An enthusiastic, a masculine, potentially slightly intoxicated voice calls her name. 

Jack closes his eyes as he leans against the counter. Their voices are muffled, and he considers briefly that its her father. He glances up at the clock on the wall. Both hands at twelve suggest that the odds are slim. He stands still, unsure whether he should laugh at himself or slink out the back door and pretend nothing has happened. But when he hears her honest laughter, it feels like a punch to the stomach. He straightens his tie and heads straight toward the front door. 

“Jack!” They barely miss colliding into each other and she grabs his shoulder to catch her balance. “What are you doing?” 

“My apologies, Miss Fisher,” he snaps as he jerks his coat off the rack. “I didn’t realize that you were expecting more entertaining company.”

“What?”

He smashes his hat onto his head. “If I hurry, though, maybe I can catch him for you.” 

Her eyes roll. “That was an old friend, and I informed him that I had a guest,” she insists as she steps in front of the door. She gives him a flirt of a smile that usually does the trick. “Jack, stop. You're being ridiculous.” 

“I’m being ridiculous. _I’m_ being ridiculous.” His heart roars to life. 

“Well. . .yes.” 

“Let me tell you what’s ridiculous. Not realizing I’m being tagged out of a game where I’m merely a spectator.” 

“What game?”

"The  game where men are practically flying across oceans, at all hours of the night. Was that the footballer again? Or maybe it was our good old friend Captain Compton?”

“I didn’t realize you were keeping such a thorough list,” she huffs. 

“I’m not keeping a list. I’m simply pointing out that I had no desire to impinge on your personal life. You don’t have to fall asleep again for me to get the message.” 

“God, Jack, that was one time. I didn’t realize you would run out as if the house was on fire.”

“So you were just pretending to be asleep, so I would leave. _Wonderful_.” 

“That’s not what I meant. What exactly do you want me to do, Jack? Pretend that I don’t have a past?”

His laugh tastes bitter. “Well, the past _feels_ very present when it’s knocking on the front door and, and-”

“And what?" She crosses her arms. "Serving you Italian food every night? Collapsing in your arms? Is that how it feels?” 

This stops him. If he could damn near figure out the look on her face, perhaps he could stop himself from saying the words that are already leaving his mouth. 

“I didn’t realize you had time to be jealous.”

“I don’t. Which is exactly why you should go home.” 

He doesn’t bother slamming the door, because she’s already turned her back on him and headed up the stairs. 


End file.
